For some reason, it feels like this week's Jimquisition reminds me of something I've been getting into a lot lately... see, I got this forum for a particularly popular animated series, and the people there are torn between what happened during season 3 of that series, as well as a movie spin-off of that series. What's worse, people who liked or didn't like these things seem to be totally condescending towards the other group. People who hated season 3 and the movie think that anyone who likes them purposefully turns off their brains and has poor taste, while people who liked season 3 says anyone who hates them is ignorant and close-minded. It really sucks, because up until that point, the forum and the fandom as a whole was pretty cool, despite what others may have thought about them, but now it's a completely broken base.

JudgeGame:Asking artists to break away from tired, stereotypical ideas and accept harder challenges leads to originality? This is baseless pseudo-science.

It's long established by many creators in all artistic endeavours that restrictions and constraints actually spur creativity. You can't really have the opportunity to "think outside the box" if there's no box. I really don't understand what science or pseudo-science have to do with creativity.

Monxeroth:I do also believe that saints row is a great example where we can have our cake and eat it too unlike some other games where its just about: Lets pander to this demographic, or, Lets try and not offend this particular group so lets remove this and this and this.

You realize the reason 90%+ of AAA game protagonists are standard-issue white straight dudes is because of the industry perception that white straight dudes would be offended if they had to play as anything else? I can't imagine where the industry gets that idea. Could it be all the butthurt white straight guys on every gaming site and forum who validate that perception?

I don't think Saints Row is the best example of inclusiveness as you can't really play as a female character.

The Boss, the character you play in all 4 games, is still the same person they were in the first Saints Row game, who was a man, a man who only achieves an optional female appearance through cosmetic surgery, making a female Boss a Transsexual.

Regardless of how you surgically alter their physical appearance and how you choose to dress them, they still act and behave like the same psychotic man they were in the first Saints Row game, there's very little plot or dialogue change to indicate an actual change in character. They're still a male character, written by men, who acts and behaves like a man, irrespective of their outwards appearance.

If the Saints Row really was as inclusive as it's held up to be, then at the beginning of Saints Row 2, when you chose The Boss's gender, you would either choose to continue playing as the same Boss from Saints Row, or through some plot contrivance you would choose to play as a new character, a woman with her own background and distinct personality who would act slightly differently from the Boss of the first game, despite following the same plot.

It seems to me that holding the Boss in Saints Row up as an good example of a female protagonist is like giving Mrs Doubtfire an Emily Pankhurst award.

For example: Does the sorceress breasts somehow lower the quality of the game? No, no it does not. Only mechanics and actual faults with the game can lower a games overrall quality in my opinion, not subjective personal nonsense like the artstyle not being appealing or the music not being received well by some. Whether you like something or not, its not a valid reason to critique a game for.

"How dare someone make a game with an artstyle that i dont find personally appealing, this game sucks"

Bad art-style can directly influence your enjoyement of the game, though. True, it's subjective what kind of art you like, but if you can't tell the enemies from the environment or get lost because every place looks the same, those are valid criticisms.

The Boss, the character you play in all 4 games, is still the same person they were in the first Saints Row game, who was a man, a man who only achieves an optional female appearance through cosmetic surgery, making a female Boss a Transsexual.

What if she was a woman all along but was disguised as a man in the first game because she thought that was the only way to get in power in a violent gang-environment?

Zachary Amaranth:Not only hasn't it been stifled, but it's escaped the ire of the people who complained about Tomb Raider and Hitman. I wonder how....

(In my opinion) Because saints row is so over the top an individual would have to be a moron to take it seriously. There is also the fact that Saints Row 1 was written off as a GTA clone. Saints Row 2, the so-called gem of the series, saw only modest success. Saints Row 3, the most successful and publicized of the series, is utterly ridiculous.

Dragon's Crown was revealed as a PlayStation Vita launch title. Videos of the game existed for two years before Jason Schreier of Kotaku saw the Sorceress and thought it promoted lolicon pornography.

JudgeGame:Asking artists to break away from tired, stereotypical ideas and accept harder challenges leads to originality? This is baseless pseudo-science.

It's long established by many creators in all artistic endeavours that restrictions and constraints actually spur creativity. You can't really have the opportunity to "think outside the box" if there's no box. I really don't understand what science or pseudo-science have to do with creativity.

I agree with the point you are making, but at the same time you seem to be countering a point that doesn't seem to be exactly the one being made (at least from what I have really seen).

When I see people complain about games being restricted I don't see them meaning in the sense that they will have less creativity. They tend to mean that they will have less creative freedom. That by caving into people saying "This is bad" or "You shouldn't be doing that" they are paving the way for people to dictate what developers can and cannot do. That would be stopping developers from making the games that they want to make and they will end up only making games that the loudest people want made, so as not to get any backlash from it.

I suppose the Mass Effect 3 ending is a good example. They chose to make the ending as it was originally and people complained about it extremely vocally. So they released the extended cut. Many people argued that by caving into the people complaining the developers gave up their creativity, because they didn't make the ending that they thought the game should have, they gave in and created the ending that the complainers wanted.

I think the fear is that if enough people start complaining about certain features in games, it will become considered socially unacceptable to have those features at all. In some ways that is actually a valid point. If people complain non-stop about sexy female characters, then eventually they are going to stop being made at all, because developers don't want the constant outrage over it from tarnishing the games reputation and giving it negative press.

It is a similar point to the one you made last week in fact. Developers don't want their fans ruining their success by harping on at a single negative review, and likewise I sincerely doubt that the creators of something like Dragons Crown wanted people only going on about the female character designs. They put a lot more into the game than titillation (I am assuming here, I haven't played the game nor do I particularly want to) so by people only dragging down the discussions to complain about the boobs, they might be put off creating such designs in the future.

People often say they don't wish to stop these kinds of things being made, only to have more choices and variety when it comes to games. A much better way of doing this is to praise the ones you like, rather than rant and rave at the ones that you don't. If people who like buxom characters praise them, games will have them. Likewise if people prefer their female characters more reasonably proportioned, then they should be discussing them and praising developers when they do make them. This will encourage them to make more.

Which doesn't happen very often to be honest. Even when developers do make decent characters to appeal to a wider audience they still get complaints. Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us all got sexism complaints based around how they created their female characters, and how is that going to encourage more variety? It's just going to put people off and in many ways that does dampen creativity.

Holy Hell that post was a lot longer than I originally intended.

The only thing I'd really add to that is a fear of letting other complainers in. The parent's groups complaining about violence. The religious groups complaining about homosexuality. PETA for animal treatment. Political groups on values being presented. These are all things that have really been complained about, and no one wants to lend a lot of credibility to by setting a precedent that you must avoid offending people.

Inclusion is generally a good idea, but i think it harkens back to another, older episode where business always finds some way of screwing up a good idea.

Take the Puppeteer, an upcoming game for ps3 which has no option to play as a girl. The developer has stated the option isn't there because that's not the story he is trying to tell. Now if business decides they need to be "more inclusive" to "appeal to a broader audience" there could be pressure from above to have the developer change that aspect. I can't say for sure if it is necessary to have the main character be a boy, but a business decision should NOT drive a games creative direction.

It's the exact opposite of the problem we have now. Businesses want to appeal to the white male aged 18 to 25 with expendable income so women and lgbt characters are hidden away in the chest so as not to scare or terrify the insecure babies.

What happens if businesses say now you need every demographic ever to cover all bases so no one is left out your story or idea be damned?

It all comes down to balance, and balance is not something almost any business handles well. They all jump on one side of the see-saw and hop up and down and wonder why no one is having any fun.

you are all arguing about insignificant things the world is coming to an end cant you see who cares about the problems presented by dragons crown or if some people think one game is neutering creativity all these video games are just made to reprogram your brain for the coming apocalypse because the illuminati is on the brick of toppling over into our world and open rule the new world order has 4.6 billion degradable bodybags prepared guess what they plan to do with it that's right to those who survive good luck ill see you out there on the wasteland I hope you pack a lunch thank god for jim also hail satan

I agree with the point you are making, but at the same time you seem to be countering a point that doesn't seem to be exactly the one being made (at least from what I have really seen).

When I see people complain about games being restricted I don't see them meaning in the sense that they will have less creativity. They tend to mean that they will have less creative freedom. That by caving into people saying "This is bad" or "You shouldn't be doing that" they are paving the way for people to dictate what developers can and cannot do. That would be stopping developers from making the games that they want to make and they will end up only making games that the loudest people want made, so as not to get any backlash from it.

I suppose the Mass Effect 3 ending is a good example. They chose to make the ending as it was originally and people complained about it extremely vocally. So they released the extended cut. Many people argued that by caving into the people complaining the developers gave up their creativity, because they didn't make the ending that they thought the game should have, they gave in and created the ending that the complainers wanted.

I think the fear is that if enough people start complaining about certain features in games, it will become considered socially unacceptable to have those features at all. In some ways that is actually a valid point. If people complain non-stop about sexy female characters, then eventually they are going to stop being made at all, because developers don't want the constant outrage over it from tarnishing the games reputation and giving it negative press.

It is a similar point to the one you made last week in fact. Developers don't want their fans ruining their success by harping on at a single negative review, and likewise I sincerely doubt that the creators of something like Dragons Crown wanted people only going on about the female character designs. They put a lot more into the game than titillation (I am assuming here, I haven't played the game nor do I particularly want to) so by people only dragging down the discussions to complain about the boobs, they might be put off creating such designs in the future.

People often say they don't wish to stop these kinds of things being made, only to have more choices and variety when it comes to games. A much better way of doing this is to praise the ones you like, rather than rant and rave at the ones that you don't. If people who like buxom characters praise them, games will have them. Likewise if people prefer their female characters more reasonably proportioned, then they should be discussing them and praising developers when they do make them. This will encourage them to make more.

Which doesn't happen very often to be honest. Even when developers do make decent characters to appeal to a wider audience they still get complaints. Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us all got sexism complaints based around how they created their female characters, and how is that going to encourage more variety? It's just going to put people off and in many ways that does dampen creativity.

Holy Hell that post was a lot longer than I originally intended.

See here's the thing though. I do admit that the sexism controversies around Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and the Last of Us were stupid, but here's the thing. With the exception of Tomb Raider they were all very small, I think only a few people got mad about the Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite I don't even remember who got mad at Bioshock Infinite or why, and I think think the Last of Us controversy was limited to just one review from the New York Times, something we all agree was kinda stupid. The Tomb Raider controversy was more about a bellend opening his mouth and saying a lot of stupid shit. In many ways it was like Assassin's Creed 3 and the controversy that it was going to be "MERICA FUCK YEAH!" despite the fact that it actually had the Thirteen Colonies pulling quite a few dick moves in game. It was less about people criticizing the game and more the marketing fucking up big time. And when the games actually came out, those criticisms fell away because they weren't actually true. As such, are they really worth getting worked up over?

Also here's something that I really don't get. Do you honestly think that people criticizing Dragon's Crown is honestly going to stop developers making games with sexualized female characters? Do you honestly think that that is going to happen? Because it isn't. I personally don't like them, but I don't see them going away any time soon, they make too much money. People made the same argument about Mass Effect 3 and how people who argued for the changing of the ending set gaming back ten years because developers would only make super happy endings to appease us now, yet not a year later Metro Last Light came out the standard ending to which involved the main character

and most people said that they thought that that ending was really good. Heck, people seem to forget about how well received the dark ending to Red Dead Redemption was. People weren't criticizing it because it was a dark ending and they didn't want dark endings anymore. They criticized it because it was shit.

Also one last point I want to make. Those three games you mentioned were actually for the most part very well received, but people still complained about a ton of things. They complained that Tomb Raider was too actiony and was basically Uncharted, they complained that the Last of Us had shit combat and that Joel was a glorified murderer, they claimed that Bioshock Infinite had its head stuck up its own ass with the inter-dimensonal bollocks and that the shooting was absolute shit with a two weapon limit. To be honest I saw all of these complaints a lot more than I saw any complaints of sexism, but I don't see how these complaints would constrict the creativity of the team, why would the sexism complaints which didn't happen as nearly as often? Ok, Tomb Raider got a lot more sexism complaints, but like I said before those complaints were because their spokesperson was a dumbass and when the actual game came out most of them fell away, replaced with the complaints about the game being too actiony. Something I've learned when writing is that you have to learn which criticisms to take into account and which ones to ignore. I learned that you will be able to spot people that have something to add, and people who have nothing to add to your criticism. I thought the woman complaining about a lack of female main characters in GTA V came off as whiny and nonsensicle, and I don't think her article is going to stop Rockstar doing what they want to do. Call of Duty has been criticized to DEATH about every last thing that it does, but Activision isn't changing it's course, neither is EA for that matter. If the industry is in such a fragile state that we can't criticize how anything is portrayed, that we have to chose between most of all female characters being sexualized or the politically correct police, then something has gone very very wrong.

Just something to think about...ok seriously what sexism complaints where there in Bioshock Infinite? I don't remember any.

Legion:I both agree and disagree.When I see people complain about games being restricted I don't see them meaning in the sense that they will have less creativity. They tend to mean that they will have less creative freedom. That by caving into people saying "This is bad" or "You shouldn't be doing that" they are paving the way for people to dictate what developers can and cannot do. That would be stopping developers from making the games that they want to make and they will end up only making games that the loudest people want made, so as not to get any backlash from it.

snip

Legion:I think the fear is that if enough people start complaining about certain features in games, it will become considered socially unacceptable to have those features at all. In some ways that is actually a valid point. If people complain non-stop about sexy female characters, then eventually they are going to stop being made at all, because developers don't want the constant outrage over it from tarnishing the games reputation and giving it negative press.

This.

Using one of the examples that you used when talking about your own writing, Jim, you talked about saying that you could call someone a "whiny, little bitch" but that's been done and it's cliche. And that it can stoke the creative fires if you have to come up with something less gender-oriented and more "welcoming," as you put it.

That's good. That's fine and dandy. But that's NOT the problem, at least as I see it.

Staying with the language motif, yes it can be very freeing to have to dig a little deeper and come up with something new, or something better. But, does that mean you cannot ever, under any circumstances, use the phrase "whiny, little bitch" anymore? No. Doing so LIMITS the creativity because you're saying to yourself that there are phrases you will not say. That puts you in a box. What if we don't WANT to be put into that, or any other confined, box.

I'm not defending the idea that all games should only be creatively drawn from a box labeled "No Girls Allowed," for example, nor would I ever. But I would defend the right of games to be in that box - because that is their creative choice. If this is really to be about creative depth and freedom, then that is the way it should be. Not just about whatever types of creativity society demands be acceptable at the moment.

Been seeing a lot on Saint's Row 4. Going to have to check that out....

Monxeroth:Its really only neutering in some cases in the sense that: Oh, we dont get to have a G-cupped playable character in this game, OH NOES MY CREATIVITY.

Then again on the other hand in some cases it does have a fair point to dismiss the criticism when its not relevant in any way to the actual game.For example: Does the sorceress breasts somehow lower the quality of the game? No, no it does not. Only mechanics and actual faults with the game can lower a games overrall quality in my opinion, not subjective personal nonsense like the artstyle not being appealing or the music not being received well by some. Whether you like something or not, its not a valid reason to critique a game for.

"How dare someone make a game with an artstyle that i dont find personally appealing, this game sucks"

You've brought up this point a number of times in similar episodes, and while I agree that mechanics are probably the most important part of a game, art style is important to the overall engagement of a game, and therefore worth mentioning when it enhances or degrades a player's engagement.

It is very much worth noting that "Dragon's Crown", while an objectively well-crafted game, if judged solely on its gameplay mechanics, is fairly unremarkable. Side-scrolling beat-em-ups with RPG elements have been popular in downloadable titles since "Castle Crashers" came out in 2008. This genre is relatively easy to develop for under a small budget, it is accessible to a large number of players thanks to the cultural ubiquity of beat-em-ups from arcades, and it can cater to both local and online multiplayer without much difficulty. As a genre, it is both well-established and pretty safe, but it can be difficult to separate yourself from the herd.

What separates "Dragon's Crown" from other games like "Castle Crashers" or "Scott Pilgrim" or "Dungeon Fighter Online" is purely in terms of its execution, story, and art style. Why should I play this game if it doesn't really attempt to do anything differently, instead opting to do the same old things really well? Well, because of the story and art style. If I find the story interesting and the art style appealing and I know I like these sorts of mechanics, I can probably maintain a decent level of engagement with the game and have an overall positive experience with it.

However, if I don't like the art style or the story, it will break my level of engagement, leaving me with mechanics that, on their own, don't really stand out from the pack or engage over long periods of time. These sorts of games can get repetitive if this is all you have.

So is it unfair for the reviewer from Polygon to give this game a 6.5, primarily citing the art style as her reasoning? In this case, I don't think so. If the art style truly bothered her and disrupted her engagement with the game, the game mechanics aren't unique or engaging enough on their own to warrant a particularly remarkable score.

Do I personally think that 6.5 is a low score to objectively give the game considering those circumstances? Maybe a bit. I think I might have gone with a 7 or 7.5, something that said "average" rather than "close to failing". However, critics are not supposed to give an unbiased or objective opinion. One could argue that it's next to impossible to do that and that even trying is disingenuous. It's far more useful for a critic to say precisely why something didn't work for them on a subjective level so that the person reading their review can determine whether or not those particular reasons would bother them.

Do you find the art style of "Dragon's Crown" offensive or distracting? Then the reviewer at Polygon was probably right on the money with her score. I imagine people with her similar tastes would feel similarly. If she had not cited her distaste with the art style, then her score might be disingenuous or next to useless, but since she did, it's easy for people who disagree with her on her points to disregard her review and purchase the game anyway. It's only a problem for people who purchase games solely on numbers rather than actually reading the review, and people like that are useless anyway.

The question we should ask isn't whether or not scoring something based on certain criteria is valid universally, but rather we should ask whether or not a score based on those criteria is particularly relevant to us on an individual level. If it isn't, then that review is meaningless to us and we can find a different one from someone whose tastes are more in line with ours. But it is pointless for a reviewer to approach a piece of art from an "objective" perspective because we as consumers don't do that. If I don't like the art style for "Dragon's Crown" or side-scroller beat-em-ups, I'm not going to buy it and play it anyway just because it's objectively a well-crafted game in its genre and most people seem to like it. As such, it is silly for a reviewer to evaluate a game in that manner. He's not grading it so it can graduate from college. He's scoring it so that consumers can decide whether or not this game is for them. If a reviewer doesn't enjoy something but they can IMAGINE that someone else with different tastes might enjoy it, that's all well and good, but they can't evaluate a game on those terms. Only someone with those tastes can do that. And thankfully, there are plenty of people out there who have done so.

And let's be real here. The main reason "Dragon's Crown" has attracted so much attention and popularity is largely because of its art style. A large number of gamers find it aesthetically appealing and that's what initially attracts them to it. Once they find out the game itself is good too, they will probably also enjoy it for those reasons, but the aesthetic appeal is what draws them in and engages them. If it fails to do that for some, which it clearly does, then it will fail to engage that audience and so it is fair enough for reviewers who share those tastes to review it on those terms.

So no, I don't think its invalid to incorporate a game's art direction in its overall appraisal if that art direction aided or detracted a significant amount from the reviewer's overall experience with the game.

Legion:People often say they don't wish to stop these kinds of things being made, only to have more choices and variety when it comes to games. A much better way of doing this is to praise the ones you like, rather than rant and rave at the ones that you don't. If people who like buxom characters praise them, games will have them. Likewise if people prefer their female characters more reasonably proportioned, then they should be discussing them and praising developers when they do make them. This will encourage them to make more.

Which doesn't happen very often to be honest. Even when developers do make decent characters to appeal to a wider audience they still get complaints. Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us all got sexism complaints based around how they created their female characters, and how is that going to encourage more variety? It's just going to put people off and in many ways that does dampen creativity.

But this is part of the problem: Variety just don't exist in video games as much as it was necessary! Lets look at some options here: How many female characters, with important and constant roles, have you seem in games? Many, and that's are good news, but, how many of them were old? Fat? A bit more muscular, maybe? You can find some women like that in may games, but they are almost always NPC's. So, I think the answer is none to most of these questions is no. Why? We are talking about fantasy worlds, where almost everything is possible, and yet, we see the same things so many times. Of course I don't want them to go away! I just want to see something less homogeneous. The new is the key to find what is right and what is wrong, and improve!

I don't think Saints Row is the best example to use. A game where you can create your own character shouldn't be compared to a game where the characters are already created for you.

You don't create a character for at least most of the series. Merely an avatar. The Boss plays the same what no matter what. You get an illusion of choice in 3 and maybe a topical smattering in 4, I don't know. This character is likely better formed than a lot of protagonists with fixed appearances, but only because gaming is terrible at doing characters. Having a pre-defined avatar doesn't need to be at-issue, either.

With GTA-V the complaint is there isn't a female character... the question to the response is "Why should there have to be?" because is there some quota that is not being met somewhere? I am not aware of it.

That's because there isn't one. People, however, have wanted a female protagonist for GTA since...What, 3? Earlier? Hell if I know. People aren't looking for some straw-checklist.

The hand-drawn art sprites of Dragons Crown or the voice acting and story of GTA-V are not so interchangeable.

You already have quite a few options in Dragon's Crown. Not to mention the amount of options SR3 did give us for voiceover. Neither strike me as particularly strong examples of why it can't/shouldn't/easily/whatever be done.

Ninjamedic:The only problem I have with using Saints Row as an example is the fact that the Player Character is a Customisable Avatar. While fine for RPGS, Sandbox Games and other games with a custom PC, it doesn't really say much about games like Red Dead Redemption or GTA V where the characters/story are written specifically to the one intended vision of the designers for those characters.

There's little that Marston's appearance impacts in terms of narrative.

I suppose the Mass Effect 3 ending is a good example. They chose to make the ending as it was originally and people complained about it extremely vocally. So they released the extended cut. Many people argued that by caving into the people complaining the developers gave up their creativity, because they didn't make the ending that they thought the game should have, they gave in and created the ending that the complainers wanted.

Of course, that ending was evidently NOT what they originally chose, so that's kind of a flawed example, but regardless:

One of the problems with this logic is simply that games are a commercial product and lack creative freedom to begin with. This is something Jim sort of alludes to, but doesn't discuss directly. The status of games as it is is done because of a lack of creative freedom. Mass Effect 3 is likely a cover-based shooter only because that's what everyone expects from the market. ME1 wasn't. Games are fairly narrow in terms of creativity because they have to be churned up for mass consumption.

If people complain non-stop about sexy female characters, then eventually they are going to stop being made at all, because developers don't want the constant outrage over it from tarnishing the games reputation and giving it negative press.

And that's totally happened, so the fear is validated.

A much better way of doing this is to praise the ones you like, rather than rant and rave at the ones that you don't.

Yes, also a much more specious line of thinking. Positive examples are few and far between and massive hooters are still the mainstay. There's always a point beyond which such actions are utterly pointless, and your advice has the rough equivalence of telling people to stick their heads in the sand. It's a politer version of "shut up."

I guess that's fine as long as you understand that's what you're saying.

Further, I don't think you understand that we already are doing that. Hell, this video praises the Saints Row series pretty hard for allowing you to play whatever you want.

Monxeroth:Only mechanics and actual faults with the game can lower a games overrall quality in my opinion, not subjective personal nonsense like the artstyle not being appealing or the music not being received well by some.

And you're free to have that definition, but art and music style/direction have ALWAYS been an element of game criticism since they existed. People seem to be complaining now only because "someone doesn't like the same art I like and said bad things about it in a review." Gaming is an audio and visual media and will be treated as such, and just because you don't want to use those criteria doesn't mean they get taken off the table.

I find it amazing that a community that is SO obsessed with graphics is suddenly "hey man, whatever!" on the subject.

This issue reminds me of Yahtzee's EP where he compared gamers to sports fans: A lot of people who I am sure (for the most part) are quite intelligent loudly voicing stupid opinions and coming up with any way to justify them.

With Football season soon to start, I'm almost tempted to start a series comparing video game arguments to assinine sports opinions (though it's likely 90% of the later will somehow involve Tim Tebow)

Jamash:I don't think Saints Row is the best example of inclusiveness as you can't really play as a female character.

The Boss, the character you play in all 4 games, is still the same person they were in the first Saints Row game, who was a man, a man who only achieves an optional female appearance through cosmetic surgery, making a female Boss a Transsexual.

Regardless of how you surgically alter their physical appearance and how you choose to dress them, they still act and behave like the same psychotic man they were in the first Saints Row game, there's very little plot or dialogue change to indicate an actual change in character. They're still a male character, written by men, who acts and behaves like a man, irrespective of their outwards appearance.

If the Saints Row really was as inclusive as it's held up to be, then at the beginning of Saints Row 2, when you chose The Boss's gender, you would either choose to continue playing as the same Boss from Saints Row, or through some plot contrivance you would choose to play as a new character, a woman with her own background and distinct personality who would act slightly differently from the Boss of the first game, despite following the same plot.

It seems to me that holding the Boss in Saints Row up as an good example of a female protagonist is like giving Mrs Doubtfire an Emily Pankhurst award.

Well. If we accept what your saying that the female boss is a transsexual, that is still really impressive. I can't think of any other game that lets you play as a transsexual.

Stabby Joe:Saints Row IV seems to be receiving a lot of "pre-hate", at least what I've seen so far, mostly because of story and gameplay changes. Despite that though I wonder how much it will come up here.

True, I started hating the changes (read: invading aliens as the main thing), but I'm growing used to it now...

I don't get how you can have it both ways. How you can say include everyone but don't appeal to a wider audience. Jim has always been a fan of niche games, horror being his favorite genre, but when Dead Space 3 came out, a game designed to be an inoffensive and inclusive as possible, he hated it. Didn't he say in a lot of videos that if a game has a small but loyal fanbase, that's awesome? Well how about now?! If you defend a game that has a small fanbase, by implication not appealing to a wider audience, AND rant and rave against the homogenization of games to appeal to a wider audience, how can you do a video saying the exact opposite?

Silentpony:I don't get how you can have it both ways. How you can say include everyone but don't appeal to a wider audience. Jim has always been a fan of niche games, horror being his favorite genre, but when Dead Space 3 came out, a game designed to be an inoffensive and inclusive as possible, he hated it. Didn't he say in a lot of videos that if a game has a small but loyal fanbase, that's awesome? Well how about now?! If you defend a game that has a small fanbase, by implication not appealing to a wider audience, AND rant and rave against the homogenization of games to appeal to a wider audience, how can you do a video saying the exact opposite?

He flat out said that there was a difference between being more inclusive and appealing to a wider audience. And let's face facts when people say "we want to appeal to a wider audience" they mean "We want Call of Duty fans" That is what Jim criticizes.

JohnHayne:What I don't get is why, oh, why, people who complaint about this or that type of game just ignore them and invest more time and money on games they like?

Isn't "Because the industry don't make them" a bad excuse??

If I was a game designer and someone told me that my game is this or that, I would say: "Yeah, it is... This is how I made it... Do I force you play and like my games? So don't try to impose your view into my work".

The solution to the lack of certain content in game is resolved by creating new content, not trying to change other peoples work.

Okay. Then I won't buy your games. Good luck with that whole food thing.

There's little that Marston's appearance impacts in terms of narrative.

No, there's nothing directly in the narrative that references Marston being a moderately-sized person with a gruff, scar-ridden face wearing typical cowboy clothing, why would there? Or did I miss the part where the story shifts because you changed your clothing?

There is, however, elements in the story that reference him being male. The game is set in the end of the wild west in the early 1900's, where women were still seen as properties of their husbands and were mostly kept as housewives, the themes of the game include things like fatherhood and the tone is realistic (the zombie add-on isn't canon). Ever seen the movie True Grit? A lot of that movie is about the female main character having to deal with constant discrimination from males when trying to get anything done, because that's what it was like at that time; now imagine a game that tries to be historically and tonally accurate like RDR having a female protagonist who's gender all the men ignore. It'd be like a WW2 movie where a Jew in Nazi Germany doesn't face any problems because of their religion. You'd either have to add in all of that and dilute the story with things that don't pertain to any of the themes, or make it an incredibly jarring story.

Jim let me put this frankly: I don't give a fuck about your idea of what is or is not creative. I don't want all my games to be Saints Row [X] clones and I don't want all my games to be fucking liberal propaganda.

Where's my next good Duke Nukem game? :< Incidentally, what will the reaction to another one of those games be by the goons that have jumped on the SJW bandwagon? (You know, since even irony is a "no-no" to those bitching, drooling, coffee drinking, Percy Jackson lipped, pillow hugging, mongfucks)

Jim, good on you for jumping in the defense of some opinions, controversial as they might be, of a recent videogame; but isn't this the same with every single nerd culture section? If I count only video games, we are among the most zealot defenders of status quo and reclusive opinions, afraid to look into ourselves and rabious about other people doing it.

Someone wants to talk about sexism? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about violence? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about rude language online? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about immature titillation? We cry foul. We complain about everything that is new: Mass Effect 3 has male gay options? Rampage! Plus required for online multiplayer? Betrayal!

Personally, I am getting tired of all this irrational defense of status quo, and Jim, as a "brilliant game talkie man", I hope you support it by not feeding the flames.

My problem with the Dragon's crown review has nothing to do with the way it depicts women or any fear it might "change things" to be more inclusive... I honestly wouldn't care if every protagonist in every game was replaced with a completely normal (real human) woman. The problem has to do with the fact that it couldn't have been more obvious the review actually deducted points for critique of the art style. If this game was a painting or even an anime, I could understand. I might just be another random internet user with no notoriety to back up my opinions and reviews, but if I used such a scale to review games, I'd give most games 5's out of 10s and under. I don't like the "style" most games are depicted in now, especially 2.5D. I think 2.5D is lazy as shit, and a testament to how much effort the industry clearly doesn't want to put in. It's just another 3D game with a fixed camera angle... All to save on the workload and effort it would take to actually makes sprites, or make a real 3D game. I also hate gimmicky styles like Kirby's Epic Yarn. I honestly think this is poisoning gaming, that is my real opinion.However, if I were reviewing games professionally, I would at least have the decency to not deduct points for that. I realize that games aren't there for just me to enjoy, and while I would need to review them, I have to also get past my obvious bias and be a bit more professional, especially if the game is pretty decent or good. Sure, I could judge a game based by art style, the political beliefs of it's creators or any other large controversial thing I could find "under the hood", but I don't think I would be a very good reviewer for doing that, and I don't think many people would trust me after, nor should they.

Also yeah, it would be more original to not have women who are big breasted or otherwise unrealistically depicted. They have been done to death, but if Hollywood has taught as anything, they'll always be around (especially now that the game industry wants to emulate Hollywood as much as possible). Sure, you can still complain about it and it's right to do so, but if you complain about all the 'movies' that use women as eyecandy (like Transformers) and deduct points specifically for that, then you aren't going to have much to see at the end of the day. Everything will upset you.